


August and Everything After

by bachelorgirl



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-16
Updated: 2009-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bachelorgirl/pseuds/bachelorgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JJ and Reid have history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August and Everything After

[ August 12, 2002]

Jennifer Jareau carefully balanced her second cup of coffee of the morning on the top of a pile of files she held in her right arm and adjusted the large box carried by her left so the weight was being supported by her hip. Her cell phone was cradled under her neck and she tried to ignore the extremely irritating hold music that was blasting into her ear.

The office was unreasonably busy this morning, even more so than a typical Monday. Not that a Monday-to-Friday schedule applied to her and her team, but there seemed to be even more of the office and administrative minions running around than usual.

Like the tall, lanky kid standing in the corner of the room who looked to be searching for something or someone. He was probably one of the new interns. Messenger bag slung across his chest, a sweater and shirt that were just slightly more formal than the clothes being worn by the rest of the people buzzing around the room. And that looked like they'd been picked out for someone at least 2 sizes bigger than the kid in front of her. Though, JJ figured, that was maybe because everyone was probably at least two sizes bigger than this kid. August seemed like an odd time for someone to be starting with a new intern, but JJ couldn't be expected to keep track of what every other person in the Unit was up to. Keeping track of her own guys was more than a full-time job as it was.

"Hey, grab this," JJ said, shifting her hips a little and nudging the box towards the lost-looking fellow, allowing her to grab her phone in her left hand.

"Do you mean to tell me that you've had me on hold for," JJ pulled her phone away from her ear and she checked the display. "Twenty-three minutes and you have no new information for me? This is completely ridiculous and I want you to get in touch with whoever's supervisor you need to get in touch with to figure this out for me. And, I'll expect a call back within the hour or I'll have director of the FBI breathing down your neck. Trust me. I know you don't know me from a hole in the wall and if we figure this out today, then we'll keep it that way. And, if you don't, well. Let's just say you're going to know me very well and wish that we'd never met. Talk to you soon." JJ closed her phone and let out an exasperated sigh.

"You know, I'm not surprised that they don't let me carry a gun. Yet," JJ said, putting the files she was carrying onto the desk, careful of her coffee.

Sticking out her hand, JJ introduced herself. "Jennifer Jareau, BAU Liaison. Which means that I've pretty much yelled at every person in this room at one time or another. And, while that may not be a ringing endorsement, it also means that I can probably help you find whoever it is that you're looking for."

"Um," his voice was quiet and JJ felt bad for him. The kid looked ridiculously nervous and his hand fiddled with the watch on his wrist, clasped over top of the sweater. "Jason Gideon?"

"And you are?"

"Um. Dr. Spencer Reid?"

JJ froze, cup of coffee halfway to her lips. "Okay, wow. HR was supposed to page me when you got here. I was going to come up and grab you, show you around. So, let's rewind and pretend that none of this ever happened." JJ put her coffee cup down on the desk and wiped her hands on her skirt.

"Dr. Reid, it's wonderful to meet you. I'm Jennifer Jareau, but you'll find that everyone I work with pretty much just calls me JJ, and you should do the same."

When she held out her hand again, she saw Dr. Reid give her a small smile as he shook it for the second time.

"Dr. Spencer Reid. Uh, Spencer," he amended with a determined nod. "They, um, told me where your office was, so I looked it up on the directory and I went there, but you weren't in there..."

JJ chuckled silently as she took a final sip of her coffee. He'd learn, eventually. "Yeah, about that. My office is pretty much a glorified filing cabinet with some pictures on the wall. If you're ever looking for me, that wouldn't be the first place I'd look."

JJ felt her phone vibrate at her hip. Picking it up, she motioned to Spencer to wait while she took a call from Hotch.

"Well, Dr. Spencer Reid, let's take you and your multiple PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry and Engineering and put you to work. It looks like we're going to be starting you off in the deep end. The team is gathering in the conference room in five minutes. I'll point out the important things on the way." She glanced at her now-empty coffee cup. "Like the coffee maker. Do you want some?" JJ asked while she picked up the stack of files, Spencer picking up the box before she could even try to get it herself.

She saw Spencer make note of her coffee cup before answering. "Um, yeah. Of course. Love some."

JJ smiled. You didn't work surrounded by profilers without picking up a thing or two as time went by. He drank coffee probably as often as JJ drank a glass of antifreeze. She led him through the maze of hallways and hung a left into the break room.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and pointed to the small fridge. "There're bottles of water in there, if you'd rather. And, mugs are in that cupboard up there if you want coffee."

She watched as he briefly considered his options and then pretended she wasn't looking when he poured approximately half a pound of sugar into his mug before filling it the rest of the way with coffee.

"Come on, Spencer. Time to introduce you to the rest of the team."

  


** ~ ** ~ **

[June 15, 2003]

"Solitaire?" JJ asked, coming up behind Spencer and peering over his shoulder. He was hunched over the table, rapidly flipping though a deck of cards, three at a time.

They were in a seemingly endless holding pattern while they waited for some intel to come in over the wire and everyone was finding some way to occupy their time. Hotch was combing thoroughly through a mountain of old case files and rubbing his temples, Gideon was reading a hardcover book with the jacket removed, making it impossible to identify from a distance, and Morgan was sleeping on the sofa in the corner of the room, arms crossed across his chest and snoring softly.

He nodded without turning around and placed the ace of spades neatly next to the ace of hearts and flipped the next card in the deck. "The British call it "Patience". This is Klondike, specifically. Draw 3, re-deal infinite."

JJ pulled up a chair next to him and watched as he continued to flip through the deck, moving and re-sorting his piles with each successive turn.

"Did you know that no one knows the theoretical odds of winning a game of solitaire?" Reid asked, his eyes never leaving the cards.

JJ didn't respond. She knew him well enough to know that most of his questions were rhetorical. She figured he'd long since given up thinking that anyone else in the universe knew as much as he did, at least most of the time. Every now and then he was still genuinely surprised when no one else in the room knew what reference he was making. It was kind of sweet.

"There was some work in the late 1990s that tried to explain an extremely simplified version of the game by using the principles of the Baik-Deift-Johansson Theorem. With that particular game, however, an optimal strategy is known and the probability distribution of outcomes, assuming perfect play, has actually been calculated. However Klondike," Reid motioned to the growing piles of cards in front of him, "involves a lot of player choice and strategy, as opposed to chance, which makes it much harder to analyze and, in spite of their best efforts, people haven't been able to build a computer simulation that can accurately mimic a human's choices and a person will actually win a greater percentage of games than even the most sophisticated computer program."

JJ pulled her hair back, twisted it up and secured it with a pencil as she watched Reid flip over the last three cards in the deck. "That whole thing about me knowing the odds of winning was another one of your rhetorical questions, right?" She smiled at him.

Reid looked over at her. "Kind of, yeah," he replied with a shy smile.

JJ watched as he placed his last card, the king of diamonds, on the pile victoriously and, before he could gather up his cards, JJ swiped her hand across the table and gathered up the four neat stacks and shuffled them together.

"Okay, then, genius boy. What can you tell me about Gin?"

Spencer grinned. "Well, according to John Scarne in his book, Scarne on Card Games, there's a lot of controversy as to where the game, which is actually called Gin Rummy, came from. It was fairly generally accepted to be Spanish in origin, possibly by way of Mexico and was originally called Conquian. Or, even more incorrectly, Coon Can. However, Scarne points out that it was actually a variation of Whiskey Poker," he paused. "What? I grew up in Vegas. That book was practically required reading. He also wrote a book about magic tricks."

JJ rolled her eyes at him, good naturedly. "Well, then at least I won't have to explain the rules to you."

"He also goes on to say that two players, equally skilled, playing Gin Rummy or Poker or Pinochle every night for a year will probably have won and lost an approximately equal number of games. Basically, in the long run, the element of chance is reduced to zero. In any game involving skill to an appreciable extent, the more skilled player _will_ outdistance the less skilled in games won, over a long period..."

"Well then, Spencer, I guess it's a good thing we have a long night ahead of us. Better get comfy," JJ said, cutting the deck and revealing a 5 of hearts. "Low card deals. Now, cut the deck. And, choose carefully, because I don't want to deal first. I never win when I deal first." She smirked at him. "Statistically speaking."

** ~ ** ~ **

[May 29, 2004]

As JJ quietly packed up the remains of their last case, she watched as her team got ready to go home for a, hopefully, long weekend.

"Finally. There's a tall, cold beer in a bar somewhere with _my_ name on it," Morgan announced, stretching his arms above his head as he pushed his way back from the table.

"See you all on Tuesday," Hotch said, waving at them as he made his way onto the elevator.

"And, I'm leaving you all and not telling you where I'm going so you won't, by the grace of God, be able to find me," Gideon said, following Hotch onto the elevators just as the doors closed. "Don't call me. I'll call you. Or not."

"What kind of trouble are you going to get yourself into this weekend, kid?" Morgan asked Spencer, pausing on his way to the elevator.

"Hang out at home. Catch up on some sleep. Read, maybe?" Spencer pushed his glasses up his nose and continued packing his stuff into his ever-present messenger bag.

"See you Tuesday, kid. Don't work too hard." Morgan slapped Reid on the shoulder, giving it a squeeze and walking towards the elevator and turning to wave at Spencer as the door closed.

Reid was the last one left in the office. JJ piled the paperwork on the middle of her desk, pulled the door closed and locked it behind her. She'd file it on Tuesday. Or, whenever they got called back into work.

"So, no big plans?" JJ asked, following Spencer to the elevator.

He shook his head.

"Well, you have some now. Let's go." JJ nodded at him.

"Huh?"

"It's Friday night. You're young. You're single. You are not going to go home and read. We're going to get you out in the real world. At least for the night. You, me and a physics lesson. Come on." She tugged him by the elbow and led him onto the elevator and a couple of blocks down the street.

She chuckled a little at his look of confusion, but waited until they'd reached their destination before she offered up any information.

"Um. JJ?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are we in a bar and what does this have to do with a physics lesson?"

"I, Dr. Spencer Reid, am saving you from yourself." Shaking her head, she walked over to the pool table and placed a couple of quarters on the pool table, claiming their spot for the next game. "So, you're not secretly a pool shark, are you?"

"I've never played," he replied, matter-of-factly.

This was actually a surprise and JJ just stared at him in disbelief, for a moment. She didn't expect that he spent every Friday night at the bar, playing pool for money, kicking ass and taking names, but she also figured that everyone played at least once while they were in college. But, then again, she thought, maybe not when you went to college at the age of 13.

"So, then I'll get to beat you at least once before you master all the laws of physics and kick my sorry butt all the way into next week?"

"I'm sure you will," Spencer said. "If it involves hand-eye coordination, it's not very likely that I'm going to unexpectedly be a secret pool prodigy." Spencer looked doubtful.

"Yes, but you can do physics in your sleep. Mind over body, Spencer. Mind over body." She wrapped an arm around him and squeezed his shoulders lightly before grabbing a cue off the wall. "It's all physics. And, if you find it hard, I'll buy you a beer. Some people, including yours truly, are actually better when they're more relaxed. And, if it doesn't help and you turn out to be pathetically bad at pool, at least you'll be having fun. Which is what people do on a Friday night. When they don't have books to read."

Spencer looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Oh, ye of little faith. Just wait. Once you get the hang of the force you need to make the ball go where you want it to, it's going to be just you and the laws of momentum and angles of reflection and all that good stuff and you're going to love it. Think fast," she said just before she tossed the cue to him gently, hoping that he'd manage to catch it.

  


** ~ ** ~ **

[January 14, 2005]

"Mara Ferguson?"

JJ jumped a little at the unexpected voice coming from behind her, nearly dropping the file she was holding onto the floor. She turned and saw Spencer standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. She nodded. "How did you... Aren't you supposed to be gone by now?

"Well, I looked everywhere else for you and when I didn't find you, I figured I might as well try in here. There's a first time for everything."

Spencer smiled and walked into her office, holding out a mug of coffee. She noticed he also held one in his other hand.

"I think I'm going to be doing this paperwork until 3am," she said tiredly, reaching for the cup of coffee gratefully. "But, then, I'm blissfully off to Florida and it's going to be just me, my sister, my nieces, and Mickey Mouse for a solid week. So I keep trying to tell myself that it's going to be worth it."

Spencer smiled shyly. "I could... help?"

"Go home. You're the one that has to be back in tomorrow morning." JJ really had to admit that she would have loved the help, but she also wanted him to go home and relax. Not that she was still entirely sure that he ever managed to do that.

He grinned and pulled up a chair next to her. "And, you're the one who has to get on a plane with a bunch of potentially screaming children in the morning. Give me." He made a motion to one of the stacks of paper on her desk.

Reluctantly, she slid it over and watched as he flipped through the files in front of him, arranging them in some sort of order that obviously worked for him. "This one was hard on you, wasn't it?"

She blinked. It was the truth, though it made her slightly uncomfortable to hear someone else point it out. But, his voice was so quiet, so unassuming, that she found herself nodding.

"I think I really do need that vacation. It's just... She was the same age my sister. Her sister was my age. Small town. Close families. Just, you know. A little more close to home than usual."

Spencer smiled. "I can relate."

She found herself smiling, in spite of herself. "Yes. I'm sure you can. People often say that Las Vegas is what they think of when they think of small town America."

"I'll have you know that I knew every one of the Blackjack dealers at the Stardust Casino by name."

JJ laughed and grinned at him. He was rarely like this. Comfortable enough to just make a joke. She always tried to be careful not make him feel self-conscious about it by pointing it out. "Well, how dare I assume."

Spencer cleared his throat and looked quickly around the room. His eyes focused on a frame beside the door. "Vanessa virginiensis," he remarked.

She looked up at him. More out of surprise that he'd noticed it, rather than surprise that he recognized it.

"American Painted Lady," he continued, pointing to the framed butterfly by the door.

"Most people think it's a Monarch." Which was true. Most people did. Most people without a photographic memory or who hadn't collected butterflies as a child. "But, then, Spence. You aren't most people."

"It looks less like a monarch on the other side, but there's enough of a difference on this side, if you know what you're looking for. There's a butterfly sanctuary in Orlando, you know. Maybe you could take your nieces there after you get done with Disney World. Though," he paused. "It could take a while to get through everything at the park. It's more than 47 square miles, or 30,000 acres. Did you know that there are more than 54,000 people employed to run Disney World? It's the largest single-site employer in the United States. And, it is about half of the total number of employees employed by the Walt Disney Company."

JJ wished her brain worked as fast as his sometimes. It would make keeping up with their conversations much less exhausting.

"I didn't know," she replied, clicking through information on her computer and putting away the stack of files she'd finished with. Only one more stack, and Spencer's, to go. "But, I do now. Hey, could you pass me that expense report?" she asked motioning to the red folder on the top of Spencer's pile.

"Okay, then. Now can you tell me the best way to get around the park with two young kids that will result in the fewest number of temper tantrums?" JJ asked, grabbing the file from Spencer and laughing as he open and closed his mouth, trying for a response but unsure what to do with a question he didn't know the answer to.

** ~ ** ~ **

[October 2, 2005]

"Go. Find our seats, I'll be there in a sec." JJ pointed down the aisle that would lead to their (really, really good) seats in the stadium formerly known as JKC Stadium. She would start calling it FedEx Field on approximately the 12th of Never.

JJ watched as Spencer made his way down the aisle to the seats before she made her way to the concessions to load up for the game.

"Alright, Spencer. Time to be the red-blooded American man I know is in there somewhere," JJ announced as she sat down next to Spencer, careful not to spill any of her food onto his lap or hers.

"Here. Happy birthday. Again." She handed him an order of nachos, a gigantic plastic cup that contained about a gallon of Pepsi, a gigantic bag of popcorn and a hot dog, piled with everything. She settled her nearly identical, minus the popcorn, order onto the floor at her feet and pulled a red baseball cap out of her purse. Shaking it open, she reached up and fit the Redskins hat squarely on Spencer's head.

"There. Now you're ready for football." She grinned at him.

"JJ, was all this really necessary?" Reid looked overwhelmed, buried under the food that JJ had piled into his lap.

"Yes. Yes it is. You just be glad that I went for the hat and not the giant foam finger." She laughed at the _disgusted_ face that Spencer made at her.

"Good crowd, huh?" She said, looking around. The stadium was full and there was so much energy in the stadium that she could almost feel the whole place vibrate.

"Did you know that the average decibel level for a stadium football game is 115? Which is almost the same as the level of sound produced by a jet engine at takeoff, which is usually somewhere around 120 decibels. And, although it varies from person to person, the threshold of pain is somewhere between 115 to 130 decibels..."

JJ looked at him and he trailed off.

"You didn't happen to bring earplugs, did you?" he asked with a hopeful expression on his face.

"No. I have some Aleve in case of an emergency, but I promise that you're not going to lose your hearing in the course of a single football game. And, now, I probably don't even need to ask, but I assume you flipped your way through "Football for Dummies" or something before we met at your house this morning, yes?"

Spencer nodded. At least he was reliable with his obsessive need to research everything. "Good, then you're going to have at least a reasonable idea of the rules and regulations and the basic point of this game. So, the rest of what you need to know is: right now, at this moment, the most important thing in the whole world is whether the guys in red and yellow can get the little brown ball over the other team's line."

"Why?"

"Because this is what you do at a football game. And, besides, its way more fun that way." She looked at him, daring him to contradict her.

"And," she continued, taking a bite of hotdog, "When it happens, you're going to cheer loudly, and stand up, if you can do it without spilling your food all over me or the guy in front of you. And, if the guys in blue doing anything that may cause them to score any points or are doing things to prevent the guys in red and yellow from scoring, you're going to boo, stand if possible, and be miserable and obnoxious along with everyone else in the crowd."

It took him a while to get into it, but by the end of the second quarter, he'd managed to consume nearly three-quarters of the food she'd brought him and he'd stopped thinking about everything and started enthusiastically joining in with the rest of the crowd, getting caught up in the energy of the crowd and the excitement of the game.

And, it was. Exciting, that is. It was a closely fought contest, with Washington coming back to tie the game with just over a minute left in the last quarter and finally managing to win in overtime. It was probably the most exciting game she'd been at in a long while and it had been fun to watch Spencer get caught up in it all.

They talked about the highlights on their way back to the subway and JJ noticed that there was something different in the way that Spencer was acting and she knew that look. She'd seen it, and had it herself, enough times to know. The look where you're at the end of a date and you start to consider how the date is going to end.

JJ sighed internally as she followed Spencer out of the subway and towards his place where her car was parked. She knew how this date was going to end. It was going to end with her telling Spencer that it wasn't a date.

"I had a great time today..." Which may not have been the way that the conversation should have started, but it was true.

"Me too," he replied.

"You know we're just friends, right?" She bit her lip. This was way harder than she wanted it to be. She knew that she needed to say it. But, it really didn't help that he looked like a puppy who'd just been kicked. Repeatedly and for no reason.

Spencer nodded and she relaxed a little. He looked disappointed, she wasn't naive enough to expect any different, she knew that they probably should have had this conversation sometime before now, but here they were. But, he also didn't look surprised, and somehow that made it a little bit easier.

"And, you know that I'm going to manage to kick your ass in pool one day? For the first time."

He smiled, just a little.

"And, that we still have another seven hundred and ninety-two games of Gin before we can officially declare a winner?"

"I'm ahead so far." Spencer's smile finally reached his eyes.

"Yeah, barely. And there's still plenty of time for a comeback. November is going to be my time." JJ nodded. "I can feel it."

Spencer looked at her, a doubting smile on his face.

"And, if not, I'll just whip your butt at darts to make myself feel better."

"That you will," Spencer replied, conceding.

"If we're lucky, I'll see you tomorrow morning ," JJ said, with a little bit of a wry smile. It was looking almost possible that they'd manage to make it through the night without being called into the Unit.

"And, if you find something for us to do in the next 12 hours before then, I'll see you sooner."

"If you ask nicely, I might be able to dig something up..." She said it with a smile, but it wasn't entirely without irony. There was always something. Someone.

"See you later, JJ." Spencer said.

JJ smiled and stood on her tiptoes, kissing his cheek softly.

"See you later, Spence."

** ~ ** ~ **

\--END--


End file.
